On Monday, a 79-year-old woman was assaulted in the lobby of a Manhattan apartment building by a girl who followed her inside and threw a flurry of punches at her.
The victim, a former mental health professional, detailed to the Post the brutal attack at her West 17th Street apartment, saying, “I've never seen a child do something like that.”
The elderly woman was on her way home from walking her dog around 11:50 a.m. when she encountered a group of young people “playing fights” in front of her home in Chelsea.
“There were about four people already on the stairs and some kids,” she said. “I told them to leave.”
A man in his 70s and a small dog entered the building and initially stopped the troublemakers from pursuing the confrontation any further.
However, a neighbor opened the inside lobby door, and one boy and one girl in the group forced their way in.
“I tried to get them to leave, but the girl hit me in the head multiple times,'' the victim said, adding that she may have been hit “20 times'' but “didn't count.'' did.
“The boy tried to get her to leave, but she wouldn't respond,” she said. “There were too many. I've never seen anything like it.”
The elderly resident said teens wandering outside the building have been a problem for the past 10 years.
“We've been through hell with these kids,” she said.
The apartment building is across the street from the NYC Lab School for Collaborative Studies, but it is not clear whether her young assailant is a student at that high school.
“I think this is a child who has been hit in the head many times himself. I've never seen a child do something like that,” the retiree said.
The victim said he ended up with a large lump on his head, but did not require further treatment.
No arrests had been made in the case by late Tuesday.
